20 Years of Extra Care: A Review - Hanover

• Housing with care provided better value
for money than residential care
• Security was a prime concern for all
– including knowing help was on hand
when needed
• Quality and size of accommodation were
key contributors in deciding to apply
• Residents repeatedly referred to the
independence and security developments
offered, yet also being part of a community
These findings are mirrored in Hanover’s
experience of what older people are looking for
in Extra Care housing.
3.1.1 Independence and choice
In response, Hanover’s model of Extra Care
housing was developed to empower older
people in making choices that are important to
them. A concrete example is the introduction
of ‘their own front door’ and having 'tenure
certainty' that meant older people in receipt of
care could refuse access to their home to anyone
they did not want to see – a revolution in the
care and support of frail older people, who have
no such powers in a residential care setting.
3.1.2 Flexible services and
living environments
Older people want services that allow them to
retain control over their daily lives with support
delivered as and when they need it. Services
need to be highly flexible in their delivery,
capable of being easily reproduced in their
essentials, but speedily adapted to suit ever
changing needs.
Ordinary housing is often not capable of
responding to even minor disabilities.
Retirement housing developments usually take
some account of the disabilities residents may
experience, but much of the older stock fails
to provide sufficiently flexible or adaptable
environments for people with more severe
disabilities. Flexible living environments is a
key component in the design of Hanover’s Extra
Care housing, so no matter what level of fitness
or ability, the design should be capable of
adaptation to changing needs.
Lifestyles are highly individual; what one
person considers a decent degree of privacy
may feel to someone else like intolerable
loneliness. Packages of care and support
therefore need to be flexible and services
tailored to individuals. Hanover is seeking
to move from the approaches that have
been applied in previous ‘generations’ of
retirement housing, where services have been
standardised by professionals, to an approach
where Hanover will be guided by local choices
and wishes of residents. The ethos adopted is
based on treating older people as the adults
they are and not assuming that professionals
know what they want.
3 Older people, local communities and partnerships
10